Our other local paper, Hibiscus Matters, has printed a comprehensive write-up of the Orewa debate on the End of Life Choice Bill. It tells me there were 400 present, a lot more than I estimated.
It offers comments from a selection of audience members on both sides but also gave a lot of space to written quotes from myself (I didn't as much as ask a question on the night!), emphasising the usefulness of getting together and hearing others' views. It was not as pessimistic as my post of 22 August for which I am grateful. We need to keep having the debate, no matter how boring it may seem to those of us who've travelled with the issues for years.
However, the tally of only 200 votes handed in on the night is almost 50-50 on the main issue (Let's face it, the Bill would be lost on half a dozen of those votes!). But this informal tally of self-selected people cannot possibly be said to be representative of the Rodney electorate population at large. If our MP is thinking that will be good enough to "get the mind of the electorate" that would be a sad day for democracy.
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